Re: Anybody going to the Joe .B and Joe Frazier show on the Coast tonight?

Candid Frazier pulls no punches

by David Lewis - March 16th, 2010 - goldcoast.com.au

THE synapses may not be firing with the same alacrity as they once did for one-time heavyweight champ Joe Frazier, but the aura which resonates from a true heirloom from boxing's great days remains undimmed.

Decked out in a black suit, topped off with a black hat and enough bling to embarrass P.Diddy, the 66-year-old nemesis of Muhammad Ali is wheeled into the suite on the 18th floor of Jupiters Casino.

It is the short-term legacy of four back operations in two years following a car crash which almost splintered his spine.

The once-proud pea**** strut of the erstwhile ring king might be barely a halting stagger now but his flashing smile and darting inquisitive eyes remain streetlight bright.

Frazier is on a flying trip to the Glitter Strip in between last weekend's guest slot at former rival Joe Bugner's 60th birthday, a bash organised by Gold Coast promoter Jamie Myer, and an appearance at a function in Brisbane on Friday.

Smokin' Joe is in a mood to reminisce; he mulls over the night Bugner took him the distance back in 1973, the year his six-year hold on the heavyweight mantle finally was broken.

Joe's nadir came in the hulking form of George Foreman.

He expresses his disdain for Ultimate Fighting, a sport he considers an abomination, saying it is more like wrestling while boxing is 'a science'.

He derides Ali as more a victim of 'left-hook-itis rather than Parkinson's syndrome', expressing little empathy for the man he says sought to demean him at every opportunity, such as calling him ugly.

He has never heard of Anthony Mundine, or Danny Green for that matter, and is embarrassed by the current paucity in the heavyweight ranks of world boxing.

He says: "There is nobody I would pay to see. There is nobody exciting.